Friday, 18 November 2016

Dreams and Reality

I'm sure each one of us had experienced this at least once. You dream while asleep and the dream feels so real. Say you dream eating a bar of chocolate, and in the dream (a non-physical state), you get the taste of chocolate, you swallow it, you hold it in your hand...everything feels so real. You wake up and realize it was a dream but so vivid and real! We've heard and read about this world being an illusion, and so it is! As I'm typing out this note, what if I'm actually dreaming this. And as you read this, what if it's in your dream!! Just as in one's dream one is aware that one is dreaming, I sometimes just sit quiet and experience the dream and instantly I feel zoned out as if I'm observing my life in 3rd person!!Look at your hands, legs or at the mirror and be aware that it's a dream. How does that feel?

In stressful and conflicting situations, I've experimented consciously to remind myself that I'm dreaming and immediately the stress mitigates. Whenever i try this, in my mind I see myself throwing my head up and laughing at how seriously I've taken these silly situations. In the movie Inception, the concluding scene is my favourite. Leonardo spins the top which is to topple if it is not an illusion, but it goes on spinning signifying that it is a dream state. It's the same with our lives too.

Sometimes I wonder what is Reality? The moment there is duality there is illusion. And the state of non-duality is very difficult to imagine because when you think that itself is an illusion! Earlier people believed that the earth was flat and that the Sun goes around Earth. People those days believed that was reality until scientists who came later gave evidence that it was otherwise. What if whatever we know to be reality now, is not actually real? It really shakes up rigid dogmas and opinions we have about ourselves and others and of everything in general.

I was reading Dr Michael Newton's book "Destiny of Souls", where a woman who was severely abused by her husband on earth, after death moves on to the spirit world to realize that her husband had taken on the role of the abuser, so she could learn lessons in a pre-arranged contract and they were actually soul mates. What if what appears is not real? What about people we don't get along with or difficult situations which are not what they appear to be? It does change your perspective on just about everything that has happened in history.

When I was about 6-7 years of age, I had a recurring nightmare. In the dream I would be climbing a flight of stairs and at the top would be a scary looking ghost/person/entity who would be harm/smother me. This dream continued for a few months. One day I decided in the waking state that if that if I had the dream again, I would fight back (in the dream). And yes, this time again I was climbing the stairs and at the top stood that malicious entity. I remember reminding myself in the dream that I have to fight back. So, chanting the Gayatri mantra, I lunged forward at the entity, fought with it and I never had the nightmare again! Somehow the wisdom of that dream is surfacing now. All this is a dream and we have nothing to fear or lose after all! We have tasks to be accomplished, but we mess things up when it take it seriously and for real.